Brazil's Ministry of Health announced on Thursday (Sept. 17) that injectable GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs, popularly known as "weight-loss pens", will be distributed free of charge through the SUS, the country's universal public health system, to patients with obesity. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Health Minister Alexandre Padilha made the announcement during a visit to Eurofarma's industrial complex in Montes Claros, in the state of Minas Gerais. The offer will require a doctor's prescription and a clinical protocol that is still being drafted, and the government gave no start date.
Padilha said the focus will be on patients with the most to gain: people with severe obesity, with related conditions such as cardiovascular disease, or with an indication for bariatric surgery. "This little pen will be used to treat people with obesity for free, when a doctor determines that a man or a woman has a health problem", Lula said, according to the magazine Veja. The minister said the drug will not enter the public system as an "aesthetic miracle".
First data from the public system
The decision rests on a study called Real-Bari, designed by the ministry with the technical team of the Grupo Hospitalar Conceição, a public hospital network in Porto Alegre. It will follow 250 patients with severe obesity or obesity combined with other conditions, selected since June, according to news agency Agência Brasil. Researchers want to know whether semaglutide, one of the active ingredients of the pens, can control obesity enough to make bariatric surgery unnecessary, and they are also measuring effects on heart problems and on the risk of breast cancer recurrence.
Padilha cited the study's first patient, who was on the bariatric surgery waiting list, lost 6 kilograms and reported lifestyle changes, including exercise. That is a single-case result. In a statement, the ministry called the first observations "positive", but no aggregate results have been released so far, and the clinical protocol that will set the rules for use in the SUS is not finished.
Prices and domestic production
Padilha linked the plan to falling prices in the private market and to domestic production. "Brazil is today the country with the greatest diversity of medicines registered to fight obesity, the so-called weight-loss pens. We already have 14 products registered. And that brought prices down for the population", he said.
"What used to cost R$ 1,700, R$ 2,000, is now between R$ 300 and R$ 400 at the pharmacy, increasing access. That already helps a lot of people. But we want something else: to make this medication available in the SUS as a right."
According to the minister, the effort began after a World Health Organization report advised countries to assess access to this class of drugs. With the semaglutide patent expiring in 2026, the ministry and the drug regulator Anvisa opened a call for companies to produce the pens in Brazil. Eurofarma, the plant Lula visited, makes Poviztra, a semaglutide developed with Denmark's Novo Nordisk and sold since October 2025 for R$ 400 to R$ 1,100 in the private market, according to Veja.
For patients, nothing changes immediately. Access through the public system remains limited to study participants in Porto Alegre, and there is no date for general distribution. The ministry's guidance is that treatment should only happen with a prescription and medical follow-up, under the criteria to be defined in the clinical protocol.